Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life


Henry Cloud - 1992
    A boundary is a personal property line that marks those things for which we are responsible. In other words, boundaries define who we are and who we are not. Boundaries impact all areas of our lives: Physical boundaries help us determine who may touch us and under what circumstances -- Mental boundaries give us the freedom to have our own thoughts and opinions -- Emotional boundaries help us to deal with our own emotions and disengage from the harmful, manipulative emotions of others -- Spiritual boundaries help us to distinguish God's will from our own and give us renewed awe for our Creator -- Often, Christians focus so much on being loving and unselfish that they forget their own limits and limitations. When confronted with their lack of boundaries, they ask: - Can I set limits and still be a loving person? - What are legitimate boundaries? - What if someone is upset or hurt by my boundaries? - How do I answer someone who wants my time, love, energy, or money? - Aren't boundaries selfish? - Why do I feel guilty or afraid when I consider setting boundaries? Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend offer biblically-based answers to these and other tough questions, showing us how to set healthy boundaries with our parents, spouses, children, friends, co-workers, and even ourselves.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and It's All Small Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things From Taking Over Your Life


Richard Carlson - 1997
    and it's all small stuff is a book that shows you how to keep from letting the little things in life drive you crazy. In thoughtful and insightful language, author Richard Carlson reveals ways to calm down in the midst of your incredibly hurried, stress-filled life. You can learn to put things in perspective by making the small daily changes he suggests,including advice such as "Think of your problems as potential teachers"; "Remember that when you die, your 'In' box won't be empty"; and "Do one thing at a time." You should also try to live in the present moment, let others have the glory at times, and lower your tolerance to stress. You can write down your most stubborn positions and see if you can soften them, learn to trust your intuitions, and live each day as if it might be your last. With gentle, supportive suggestions, Dr.Carlson reveals ways to make your actions more peaceful and caring, with the added benefit of making your life more calm and stress-free.

Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder


Arianna Huffington - 2014
    Arianna Huffington's personal wake-up call came in the form of a broken cheekbone and a nasty gash over her eye -- the result of a fall brought on by exhaustion and lack of sleep. As the cofounder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group -- one of the fastest growing media companies in the world -- celebrated as one of the world's most influential women, and gracing the covers of magazines, she was, by any traditional measure, extraordinarily successful. Yet as she found herself going from brain MRI to CAT scan to echocardiogram, to find out if there was any underlying medical problem beyond exhaustion, she wondered is this really what success feels like? As more and more people are coming to realize, there is far more to living a truly successful life than just earning a bigger salary and capturing a corner office. Our relentless pursuit of the two traditional metrics of success -- money and power -- has led to an epidemic of burnout and stress-related illnesses, and an erosion in the quality of our relationships, family life, and, ironically, our careers. In being connected to the world 24/7, we're losing our connection to what truly matters. Our current definition of success is, as Thrive shows, literally killing us. We need a new way forward. In a commencement address Arianna gave at Smith College in the spring of 2013, she likened our drive for money and power to two legs of a three-legged stool. They may hold us up temporarily, but sooner or later we're going to topple over. We need a third leg -- a third metric for defining success -- to truly thrive. That third metric, she writes in Thrive, includes our well-being, our ability to draw on our intuition and inner wisdom, our sense of wonder, and our capacity for compassion and giving. As Arianna points out, our eulogies celebrate our lives very differently from the way society defines success. They don't commemorate our long hours in the office, our promotions, or our sterling PowerPoint presentations as we relentlessly raced to climb up the career ladder. They are not about our resumes -- they are about cherished memories, shared adventures, small kindnesses and acts of generosity, lifelong passions, and the things that made us laugh. In this deeply personal book, Arianna talks candidly about her own challenges with managing time and prioritizing the demands of a career and raising two daughters -- of juggling business deadlines and family crises, a harried dance that led to her collapse and to her "aha moment." Drawing on the latest groundbreaking research and scientific findings in the fields of psychology, sports, sleep, and physiology that show the profound and transformative effects of meditation, mindfulness, unplugging, and giving, Arianna shows us the way to a revolution in our culture, our thinking, our workplace, and our lives.

Who Will Cry When You Die?


Robin S. Sharma - 1999
    Specific lessons include how to: "Discover Your Calling," "See Your Troubles as Blessings," "Enjoy the Path, Not Just the Rewards," and "Live Fully So You Can Die Happy." This is a truly remarkable book that you will treasure for a lifetime!

The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully


Frank Ostaseski - 2017
    Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is the secret teacher hiding in plain sight, helping us to discover what matters most in life.Life and death are a package deal. They cannot be pulled apart and we cannot truly live unless we are aware of death. The Five Invitations is an exhilarating meditation on the meaning of life and how maintaining and ever-present consciousness of death can bring us closer to our truest selves. As a renowned teacher of compassionate care-giving and the cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project, Frank Ostaseski has sat on the precipice of death with more than a thousand people. In The Five Invitations, he distills the lessons gleaned over the course of his career, offering an evocative and stirring guide that points a radical path to transformation.The Five Invitations:-Don’t Wait-Welcome Everything, Push Away Nothing-Bring Your Whole Self to the Experience-Find a Place of Rest in the Middle of Things-Cultivate Don’t Know MindThese invitations show us how to wake up fully to our lives. They can be understood as best practices for anyone coping with death or navigating any sort of transition or crisis; they guide us toward appreciating life’s preciousness. Death can be a valuable companion on the road to living well, forging a rich and meaningful life, and letting go of regret. The Five Invitations is a powerful and inspiring exploration of the essential wisdom dying has to impart to all of us.

Good Vibes, Good Life: How Self-Love Is the Key to Unlocking Your Greatness


Vex King - 2018
    Vex overcame adversity to become a source of hope for thousands of young people, and now draws from his personal experience and his intuitive wisdom to inspire you to:  *  practice self-care, overcome toxic energy and prioritize your wellbeing  *  cultivate positive lifestyle habits, including mindfulness and meditation  *  change your beliefs to invite great opportunities into your life  *  manifest your goals using tried-and-tested techniques  *  overcome fear and flow with the Universe  *  find your higher purpose and become a shining light for othersWith this book, Vex will show you that when you change the way you think, feel, speak and act, you begin to change the world.

How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self


Nicole LePera - 2021
    Nicole LePera often found herself frustrated by the limitations of traditional psychotherapy. Wanting more for her patients—and for herself—she began a journey to develop a united philosophy of mental, physical and spiritual wellness that equips people with the interdisciplinary tools necessary to heal themselves. After experiencing the life-changing results herself, she began to share what she’d learned with others—and soon “The Holistic Psychologist” was born.Now, Dr. LePera is ready to share her much-requested protocol with the world. In How to Do the Work, she offers both a manifesto for SelfHealing as well as an essential guide to creating a more vibrant, authentic, and joyful life. Drawing on the latest research from a diversity of scientific fields and healing modalities, Dr. LePera helps us recognize how adverse experiences and trauma in childhood live with us, resulting in whole body dysfunction—activating harmful stress responses that keep us stuck engaging in patterns of codependency, emotional immaturity, and trauma bonds. Unless addressed, these self-sabotaging behaviors can quickly become cyclical, leaving people feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, and unwell.

The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World


Desmond Tutu - 2013
    If you asked anyone what they thought was going to happen to South Africa after apartheid, almost universally it was predicted that the country would be devastated by a comprehensive bloodbath. Yet, instead of revenge and retribution, this new nation chose to tread the difficult path of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation.Each of us has a deep need to forgive and to be forgiven. After much reflection on the process of forgiveness, Tutu has seen that there are four important steps to healing: Admitting the wrong and acknowledging the harm; Telling one's story and witnessing the anguish; Asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness; and renewing or releasing the relationship. Forgiveness is hard work. Sometimes it even feels like an impossible task. But it is only through walking this fourfold path that Tutu says we can free ourselves of the endless and unyielding cycle of pain and retribution. The Book of Forgiving is both a touchstone and a tool, offering Tutu's wise advice and showing the way to experience forgiveness. Ultimately, forgiving is the only means we have to heal ourselves and our aching world.

Cultivate: A Grace-Filled Guide to Growing an Intentional Life


Lara Casey - 2017
    Instead they feel inadequate, overwhelmed, paralyzed by fear and insecurity, and are exhausted simply trying to figure out where to begin. “The secret to living a flourishing life isn’t in engineering the perfect circumstances or having it all together. The secret is in the small,” says author and speaker Lara Casey. “It’s easier than you think to cultivate what matters. It all starts with a tiny seed.”Welcome to the journey of getting messy in the rich soil of possibility—embracing imperfect, grace-filled progress to grow a life of joy.Written as part encouragement anthem and part practical guide, Cultivate equips women to uncover and take action on goals that simplify life. Lara's signature “goal gardening” steps release them from the pressure to achieve and gives them freedom to move from planning to planting. Readers will walk through each season, finding balance as they interact in fresh ways with their current life scenarios, with God, and in the communities where they are planted. "You don't have to be perfect; you just have to plant! As you open this book, you are making a decision to leave the dry soil behind. You will lean in . . . and unrush your life. And in the process you will unearth your purpose."Special features includeGoal Gardening Stepsan eight-week Fruitful Goal Gardening Guide with questions for small groupsGardening 101 to start your own real-life flower or vegetable gardenFind the joy and the freedom that comes in cultivating. Cultivate your faith. Don’t fertilize the fear. And watch how your life flourishes in the days ahead!

Success Through Stillness: Meditation Made Simple


Russell Simmons - 2014
    Simmons attributes his meditation practice with changing his life for the better and says that there is no “bad” way to meditate, only different forms for different people.In this highly anticipated new book, Russell Simmons guides readers into finding greater clarity and focus, and explains how to be healthier in both mind and body. Simmons breaks down what he's learned from masters of meditation into a guide that is accessible to those unfamiliar with the practice.

The Science of Getting Rich


Wallace D. Wattles - 1910
    Wattles spent a lifetime considering the laws of success as he found them in the work of the world’s great philosophers. He then turned his life effort into this simple, slender book – a volume that he vowed could replace libraries of philosophy, spirituality, and self-help for the purpose of attaining one definite goal: a life of prosperity. Wattles describes a definite science of wealth attraction, built on the foundation of one commanding idea: “There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made…A thought, in this substance, produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.” In his seventeen short, straight-to-the-point chapters, Wattles shows how to use this idea, how to overcome barriers to its application, and how work with very direct methods that awaken it in your life. He further explains how creation and not competition is the hidden key to wealth attraction, and how your power to get rich uplifts everyone around you. The Science of Getting Rich concludes with Wattle’s rare essay “How to Get Want You Want” – a brilliant refresher of his laws of wealth creation.

The Disappearance of the Universe


Gary R. Renard - 2002
    The result is this startling book: an extraordinary record of 17 mind-bending conversations that took place over nearly a decade, reorienting the author's life and giving the world an uncompromising introduction to a spiritual teaching destined to change human history.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life


Donald Miller - 2009
    One story had ended, and Don was unsure how to start another.But he gets rescued by two movie producers who want to make a movie based on his memoir. When they start fictionalizing Don's life for film--changing a meandering memoir into a structured narrative--the real-life Don starts a journey to edit his actual life into a better story. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details that journey and challenges readers to reconsider what they strive for in life. It shows how to get a second chance at life the first time around.

Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People


Bob Goff - 2018
    The path toward the liberated existence we all long for is found in a truth as simple to say as it is hard to do: love people, even the difficult ones, without distinction and without limits.Driven by Bob’s trademark storytelling, Everybody, Always reveals the lessons Bob learned--often the hard way--about what it means to love without inhibition, insecurity, or restriction. From finding the right friends to discovering the upside of failure, Everybody, Always points the way to embodying love by doing the unexpected, the intimidating, the seemingly impossible. Whether losing his shoes while skydiving solo or befriending a Ugandan witch doctor, Bob steps into life with a no-limits embrace of others that is as infectious as it is extraordinarily ordinary. Everybody, Always reveals how we can do the same.

Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity


David Lynch - 2006
    Lynch writes for the first time about his more than three-decade commitment to Transcendental Meditation and the difference it has made in his creative process.In brief chapters, Lynch explains the development of his ideas - where they came from, how he grasps them, and which ones appeal to him the most. He specifically discusses how he puts his thoughts into action and how he engages with others around him. Finally, he considers the self and the surrounding world - and how the process of "diving within" that has so deeply affected his own work can directly benefit others.Catching the Big Fish comes as a revelation to the legion of fans who have longed to better understand Lynch's personal vision. And it is equally intriguing to those who wonder how they can nurture their own creativity.